Painted sf & fantasy miniatures by Gerrie Schenck

As written at the end of part 1, I asked for a replacement. It was sent out right away and I received it in about a week. I still had some hope left to get an error-free model this time, but it turned out otherwise.

In general this model has more problems on it than the previous one. When putting them next to each other I immediately noticed number two had some deformation issues. The face looks different, much more slim than the previous one. The arm is also bent in a strange way, and the two tentacles above his head look completely different.

The first model had a lot of bubbles in the chest area, this one had exactly the same mistakes. There's also a big lump of flash on his chin.

The mechanical arm has bubbles in exactly the same spot as the first model, together with some more bubbles a bit higher up. In general the lower part of the model has less bubbles, but the toe still had the same problem. I also noticed some additional channels between the worms on the base. Speaking of the base: there's a part missing, caused by a bubble.

The cloak is probably the worst part of the miniature. It's so thin it's translucent in places, and on two occasions a hole formed. The spine normally has some spines running along it, but halfway these are simply missing.

This is how it looks when it's held against a light:

What really struck me is the difference between the first and the second sprue. I also noticed some errors on the first sprue, like the weapon which is missing a large part. But in general the channels are laid out completely different. How can you achieve a consistent quality when all of the molds are different?

Anyway I asked customer support if it was relevant to get another replacement, or if there is a consistent problem with this particular model. It took about a week to get a reply, but this is what they sent me:

Hi Gerrie,

Firstly I want to apologise that the replacement model you received was once again faulty. I have requested another Urien Rakarth for you, that both me (and the rest of the customer service team) and the Quality Control Manager will check before we send it out to you.

Again apologies and we will let you know immediately when we have a model we are satisfied with to send out to you.

I expect them to return a flawless model now, nothing less. If that isn't the case I'll ask for a refund.

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comments:

This must be really frustrating for you, as I'm sure it is for everyone else who has had similar problems. I'm yet to get a finecast mini without numerous, significant bubbles and miscasts. It's discouraged me from buying finecast whenever I can avoid it. Good luck to you, I hope the next one you get is in much better shape.

Really frustrating, particularly given the rather hefty price for most Finecast minis. Recently picked up my first two Finecast minis as well and I have pretty much the same issues:- bubbles & warped weapons(repairable, though annoying)- half cast bits, fingers and spikes seem particularly vulnerable (again repairable, though not something a starting gamer will be able to handle)- missing bits (missing a full Cryptek arm).

Hope you'll have better luck with the next one, not in the least as I'd love to see you paint him up!

If You see some promotional and investor videos circling around the net You will see how "quality control" used to see. One lady takes out all minis from the mould, see of there are any significant miscasts for about 3 seconds and then throws them out to the large bin to be packed. I seriously doubt that this kind of control changed in finecast era... Anyway, imagine what kind of time delay would it cause to thoroughly check every one casted miniature. In company pumping out thousends of same minis every day/week/month, it is simply impossible. Anyway, bought miniatures will be thoroghly looked over by very small minority of players, so why cares... Corporate policy, just like old story with large American car company knowing that one of the car has fault potentially resulting in catching fire when hit in a specific spot. It was much easier and cheaper to just pay "damage bills" for those few unlucky owners then change whole car...

I bought a box of DE Wracks in the hope that I could convert them to Blood Bowl models, but after getting half-way through some of the conversions, I realised that the rims of their helmets were ALL missing huge chunks.

Finecast is the worst format of miniature I have ever seen - at least GW knew how to cast metal, even if the details weren't as sharp - though to be honest, I don't see a great deal of difference once the mini is painted anyway...

Very disappointed with it and have now moved over to other miniature companies for something a bit different - an much better quality!

Hey bud this is VividAdventures2010 from YouTube. Since you mentioned your blog and your facebook pages on one of the videos today thought I would stop by. I found this post interesting as I begin to look through what you've been up to here. I ended up getting out of GW at the beginning of this year so have missed the Finecast era so far. I really haven't heard anything good of it yet. I really appreciate you taking the time to point out your experience in so much detail though. I hope other modelers, collectors and gamers get a chance to see this post. Lots of great information here.